Audi Design Study Is Cold As Ice

After a lifetime of Scandinavian winters, Swedish automotive design student Niklas Palm was inspired by chills and thrills when he created the Audi Icekraft concept: a totally terrifying combination of solar power, sailing and the skeleton.

Palm, tasked with creating the “ultimate driving experience,” sought to solve the problem of how car nuts can catch their jollies in total whiteout conditions. “I started to look at club sport racing, track days and such things and noticed that there’s nothing today that can give the same thrill during the winter period and especially not anything green,” Palm told Autopia.

Enter the Icekraft, a sail-enhanced ice sled (video) where the driver lies face down and steers with the front blades. A solar-powered engine turns the sail for ultimate windpower out on the ice. “Driving on land with your head first gives a thrill beyond anything else,” Palm said.

At least you won’t have to go too far to search for an icepack to soothe your inevitable concussion.

For a wintertime toy, the Icekraft takes a lot of inspiration from warmer climes. “The system with the automatic sail system is being used in a much larger scale on luxury sailing mega yachts,” Palm said. “I scaled it down and also made it possible to change the sail if you want to go fast or have a lot of power.” The body is covered with solar cells — an inspiration from Palm’s fellow Swedes who created the Koenigsegg Quant concept — and the sail itself was inspired by boats in Malaysia.

According to Palm, the Icekraft was branded as an Audi because it fits the company’s design philosophy and heritage. “The rally cars, the Le Mans racers, the Quattro system, the superb quality,” he said. In addition, the Audi grille became part of the front windscreen and electronic heads-up display.

Palm says that getting to design concepts like the Icekraft is a dream come true. “I have always been a car nut, and I have always been drawing cars and other types of vehicles,” he told Autopia. The youngest student ever accepted at the Umeå Institute of Design Bachelor Product Design Program, Palm is now working on a Masters degree and loving it. “I do what I did on my sparetime before on school time now. ”

The technology to build the Icekraft should be ready in less than a decade, Palm said. We suggest he solicit Todd Palin to test the prototype.

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